Proper thermal management is critical to the successful operation of many types of devices. Standard industry practice for cooling ruggedized avionics modules, for example, involves use of a conduction-cooling frame that is bonded to a printed circuit board to conduct heat out to an external chassis via a standard interface.
Such a technique is illustrated in FIG. 1. In the example shown, a conduction-cooled card assembly 100 includes a conduction-cooling frame 102 with a host printed wiring board 104 mounted on it via standoffs 106. Various components 108 are disposed on the host board 104, and a thermal fill material 110 is disposed between the components 108 and the frame 102 so as to allow heat to be conducted from the components 108 to the frame 102. A PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) 112 is electrically interfaced with the host board 104 via a PMC connector 114. Heat from components 116 on the PMC 112 is conducted to the frame 102 via thermal pads 118 and a thermal rail 120. Wedgelock fasteners 122 are attached to thermal management interfaces 124 on either side of the frame 102. When the card assembly 100 is inserted between rails 126 of a chassis 128, tightening of the wedgelock fastener 122 causes the width of the fastener 122 to increase so that a top surface 130 of the wedgelock fastener 122 is pressed firmly against one of the rails 126a and a bottom surface 132 of the thermal management interface 124 is pressed firmly against another of the rails 126b, thereby securing the assembly in place within the chassis and creating a thermal interface between the frame 102 and the chassis 128. Heat from the frame 102 may thus be conducted from the frame 102 to the chassis 128 and may be dissipated from the chassis 128 via fluid flowing through a cooling wall 134 or by some other known mechanism.